THE 500/1 PLAN

The purpose of this plan is to consistently locate winning fourfold accumulators. The underlying aim is to locate winning fourfolds with odds in excess of 500/1 - hence the name THE 500/1 PLAN. The accumulators this plan produces are not always quite as profitable as 500/1, but if you use the plan correctly, the minimum returns will be at least 250/1. This plan really is that profitable!

You cannot expect the 500/1 plan to be always winning, but at the kind of adds you'll get on winning days, you need only the occasional success to stay well and truly in profit. Having said this, if you apply the principles of the plan with care, you may be surprised at just how consistent it can be.

You will not need a large bank of money to bet with to operate this plan, you will only be placing comparatively small stakes each day you decide to bet. Neither will you need to use any expensive staking plans, (increasing stakes after losing days etc.). You can decide initially what unit stake you can afford and stick to that unit stake until your winnings allow you to increase it. One word of caution, don't be too ambitious when deciding what unit to use at the beginning. Make sure you can afford to suffer a few losing days before you start getting the big returns. There is nothing to say that one of your first fourfolds wont win and in such a case you will be off to a flying start and you should then always have sufficient funds to finance your betting, but "sods law" dictates that if you budget your funds to allow you to withstand an initial losing run of ten days, then the first successful accumulator you select will be on the eleventh!

For the purposes of this booklet, I have used a unit stake of £1.00. This would entail having to bet £6.00 plus tax per day - you'll understand why later. Obviously you can adjust the unit stake to suit your own circumstances.

One final point, although there is no reason why this plan can't be used on any racing day, it is best to limit it to days when there are plenty of races to choose from, Fridays, Saturdays, Bank Holidays etc.

THE 500/1 PLAN

A fourfold accumulator usually entails selecting one horse to win in each of four separate races. All four horses chosen have to win, if not then the bet is lost.

The odds on correctly selecting four winners from four races are huge. Even the most knowledgeable racing enthusiast would find it impossible to select four straight winners with any regularity. Even if you just picked four odds-on favourites, it would be a rare day that all four came home in front - only about 50-60% of odds-on actually win!

Using reasonable selection methods, most gamblers should be able to pick two or even three winners from four races from time to time, but it is getting a fourth winner that is the problem. How many times have you said "just one horse let me down"?

Each element of an accumulator bet increases the risk of that bet losing greatly, but this risk can be significantly reduced if we select more than one runner in each element of the bet.

Imagine if instead of just one horse in each race you selected two or three. If in each element of your accumulator any one of three horses you selected could win, then even if you made your selections by sticking a pin in the race card and thus produced three runners in each of four races, you would have a reasonable chance of winning.

Unfortunately, as you have no doubt realised, it is more than a little impractical to actually bet on any one of three horses winning in each part of a fourfold. The number of bets needed to cover all the possible winning combinations would be much too great to make this a viable possibility (81 bets actually), but I am sure you can see the principle of how increasing your selections in each element of a combination, greatly reduces the risks of your bet losing.

Although we may not be able to make multiple selections in every part of an accumulator, we can make more than one choice in at least some of the elements. Good selection methods will help us to reduce the need for too many selections. The principle of the plan is that we combine thoughtful, informed selections with some multiple options, working together this will greatly increase our chances of winning.

There are a great many different combinations of bets we can use, eg. two selections in each of the four races, this would require a total of 16 different bets (still a little too many), or maybe just selecting just one runner in each of the first three races combined with five options in the last race, this would only need 5 different bets to be placed, but it isn't the most reasoned way of doing things.

The format I suggest requires placing just 6 different bets, but I feel that this format provides the right balance between intelligent selection methods and the use of multiple options.

This is what I propose doing:

In two of the races we make just one selection. In the third race we pick two horses and in the remaining race we pick three runners. This requires just six different bets. We will need to be careful with our selecting, especially in the first two elements where we have no margin for error, but I feel this is the right combination to use all things considered.

One of the main advantages of using this combination is the scope it gives us for increasing the accumulated odds of the bet. To explain further, although we need to stick to short priced certainties" in the two elements of the bet where we can only make one selection, the luxury of being able to pick two and more so three horses in a field allows us to more adventurous with our selections. For the "three horse race" we can choose a wide open race and select three runners at longer prices. This really helps to multiply the returns.

HORSE SELECTION

As we have said, even though this plan does give us something of a margin of error, we still have to be very careful when making our selections. Methods of selecting horses are many and varied. In all my time of studying racing, I have yet to see a method of selecting winners that was 100% consistent. I know some very good methods of increasing your chances, but it is impossible for me to say to you do x, y and z and you are guaranteed winners.

What I can do is pass on to you a few guidelines that I use when looking for winners. The first pieces of advice are particularly aimed at locating the single horses for elements 1 and 2, after which I have a couple of suggestions to help you when looking for the two and three horse combinations.

1. Use a race at a meeting of reasonable quality. You do not necessarily have to use the major meeting of the day, but the prize value of the race you use should be sufficient to ensure that the horses entered are there to make a genuine effort to win, (£3,000 upwards minimum).

2. Ensure that all the runners in the race you use have a reasonable amount of form behind them. They should have had at least two races in the present season.

3. Look for favourites that are between 1.5 and 2 points clear of the next horse in the betting, eg. if the favourite is 6/4, then the next horse in the betting should be at least 3/1, preferably around 7/2.

4. Don't put too much faith in tipsters unless you know from your own experience which tipsters to trust. Having said this, if the horse you are considering is hardly being tipped by any of the tipsters, there is probably a good reason.

5. Try to avoid races which are any of the following; specifically for amateurs, lady jockeys or apprentices, Claimers or Sellers, maiden races. Personally, I am still cautious about using races at all-weather meetings. Form gained on turf does not seem to have too much bearing on a horse's form on these tracks, and subsequently a little too many outsiders seem to win for my liking. However, this is just my own opinion, and all-weather races can sometimes supply the right kind of races for use as element 3 or 4 where we have the luxury of picking two or three contenders, but where we need better prices.

6. Locating the race to use for the third element of our bet can be awkward. Although it may seem an easier job to find a winner when we are picking two horses in the same race, the problem we have is that we realistically need to find horses around 5/2 or 6/1 if we want to get the really good returns. To help you find a supply of winners around these prices here is probably one of the best selection hints I've ever given. Look for a horse in a race that is forecast to be about the correct odds we're looking for, its form will quite often be fair to indifferent, (plenty of thirds, fourths etc but few firsts), look at this horse's racing history notes, you will only find these in proper racing papers, I use the Sporting Life. If the horse's prior results were gained better classes of races than the one it is about to run in, ie. if its last few races had prize values of £4,000 or £5,000 etc. and it is now running in a race for £2,000 then this horse's chances might well be better than its odds suggest. Find a horse like this and cover it along with a shorter priced horse in that race, this will act as something of an insurance policy. You will be surprised at just how often a horse dropping in class comes home at a good price!

7. When looking for a race for the fourth element where we pick three horses, what I tend to do is look for a handicap with between 8 and 12 runners in the field and where the betting forecast suggests that the race is quite open. The forecast favourite should be about 4/1+. Pick the favourite plus two others from the top half of the forecast to use. In a handicap race like this it is a bit of a lottery selecting the winner, but by covering three runners in the way we are doing the odds will be in your favour.